Where to Stay in Davenport, Iowa

What is Davenport known for?

The Figge Art Museum stands over the Mississippi River waterfront and the Putnam Museum holds the older collections, and between them they account for much of what brings visitors into Davenport rather than merely through it. Congregations supply the next tier, with Bethel AME Church and First Presbyterian Church among the named buildings of Scott County. Houses carry the rest, from the Antoine LeClaire House to the Leon Bismark Beiderbecke House and the Renwick House.

What are the main landmarks in Davenport?

Art first, then congregations, then houses. The Figge Art Museum and the Putnam Museum head the list, the Dillon Memorial marks the waterfront, and the churches run from St. Mary's Catholic Church and St. Anthony's Catholic Church through First Presbyterian Church, Bethel AME Church, and the First Church of Christ, Scientist. Domestic architecture supplies the bulk.

Hillside, the Renwick House, the B.J. Palmer House, the George Copeland House, the Lambert-Iles-Petersen House, and the House at 919 Oneida Street all carry names on the city's landmark roll.

What is the history of Davenport?

The founding year is 1836. Antoine LeClaire belongs to that first chapter and his house survives to prove it, one of the earliest names on a list that grew long as Davenport spread back from the Mississippi River and took the county seat of Scott County. Growth came in waves.

Each wave left buildings behind, among them the Renwick House, the George Copeland House, and the Lambert-Iles-Petersen House on the older residential blocks. Worship marked the same decades, and Bethel AME Church, First Presbyterian Church, and the First Church of Christ, Scientist each record a separate strand of settlement in the city. Prosperous families built outward, leaving the Selma Schricker House and the Fred B. Sharon House scattered through streets that had been farmland a generation earlier.

Hillside dates from the same stretch. The House at 919 Oneida Street keeps a street address in place of a family name. Later came the institutions the city still runs on, with the Putnam Museum gathering the regional collections and the Figge Art Museum taking the art down to the waterfront beside the Dillon Memorial.

Bettendorf, Rock Island, Moline, and East Moline grew alongside on both banks, and the five settled into the arrangement known as the Quad Cities.

Where is Davenport?

Scott County holds the city and the Mississippi River bounds it. Davenport occupies the Iowa bank at the state's edge with Illinois, and the ground climbs away from the water in shelves that put the Putnam Museum well above the level of the Figge Art Museum. Bettendorf adjoins it upstream.

Rock Island, Moline, and East Moline lie opposite on the Illinois side, and the five together make up the Quad Cities.

What is the climate of Davenport?

Davenport keeps a continental calendar. Summer heat draws humidity off the Mississippi River and holds it over the streets, while winter arrives hard from the interior with no coast anywhere near enough to soften the edge of it. Snow falls most winters.

Spring carries the river's own hazard, since high water on the Mississippi has always been part of the year in Scott County.

How do you get to Davenport?

The Quad Cities move as one road network. Bridges over the Mississippi River tie Davenport to Rock Island, Moline, and East Moline on the Illinois bank, while Bettendorf carries the built-up area on along the Iowa side without a break. Colour-coded signs mark the routes between them.

Scott County roads take everything that is not crossing the river, and the Figge Art Museum sits close enough to the waterfront to be the first thing many arrivals see.